The first round is for acceptance and definitions only. The only rule is that their should be no new arguments in the last round.

Definitions:

Evil- less morally right than morally wrong

Good- less morally wrong than morally right

Government- Any large organization with the power to make and enforce laws within a given territory, that has more power than the people.

Morally Wrong: More Loss of life than Protection of LifeMorally Right: More Protection of Life than Loss of Life.Morally Wrong: More Bodily Harm Inflicted than PreventedMorally Right: More Bodily Harm Prevented than Inflicted (except when loss of an individuals life is what prevents said individual from bodily harm)Morally Wrong: More Harm to Society than Benefit Morally Right: More Benefit to Society than HarmMorally Wrong: More Rights (property, speech, press, basically all of the Constitutional Rights) violated than necessary, or creating an environment where it is necessary to remove rights when the situation could have been avoidedMorally Right: Protecting these Rights

The rest of the morals will be up for debate. Usually the morals in question will be morally good and morally bad at the same time, given the criteria, although this is not always the case. Let's dive in:

First of all, the state is evil because while people originally agree to a tax, if somebody decides not to pay that tax anymore, or they simply were born into a system which forces them to pay taxes because somebody from 10 generations ago agreed to it, while they do not, the government holds them at gunpoint and locks them in a cage. This sounds like it's for the better of society, but it's really not. Here's why.

If taxes are truly spent on the welfare of society, then why can't a person simply opt out and not receive any benefits? For example, if a parent stop paying property taxes, they are held at gunpoint and locked in a cage. This begs the question, "If the property taxes are spent on school, then why can't the parent simply take their child out of school and homeschool them? After all, it's their money, why can't they educate the kid they want to, without also paying for someone Else's kid's education?" The same goes for social security. If one doesn't want to pay the tax, just don't let the person have Social Security. Seems fair to me. The conclusion to this argument is that the State is evil because it acts as a middle man for people to get things they want by stealing money from those who don't want the same benefits in the first place, therefore taking away the right to property, thus being morally wrong and evil.

Speaking of education, lets talk about schooling. The state is evil because it forces our children to go to school and be molded into a puppet of the state.. In essence, the state forcefully teaches children how and what to think, giving them false versions of history as they see fit, discouraging or even outright banning freedom of expression, does not allow the teachers to teach anything that is not state-approved, and uses violence to get the funds necessary to do so. The state gives the illusion of opting out if this indoctrination system, but only allows you to do so if you are paying property taxes and teaching the state-regulated curriculum. This harms society by dumbing down its children and violates Rights by taking away free-thought and thus free will. This is morally wrong and therefore makes the state evil.

On to my third argument, the wars. Government wages war without the peoples, and now even without Congressional (think Libya http://exposethemedia.com......) consent. This is Morally Wrong and evil because it takes away Lives and inflicts bodily harm on both sides, and since many of these are unprovoked, does not save the lives of anybody. It also violates Rights because it does not give people the ability to decide, thus taking away free will. It harms society because it makes a given country enemies, thus making the potential for more war and more evil to be inflicted on society. Government waging wars without the peoples consent is the most morally wrong and evil thing yet, because it fits all of the basic criteria for Morally Wrong that everyone can agree to.

In conclusion, the state is evil, it is just the Patriotism that makes it seem good. If Britain were to invade the U.S and conquer it and started taxing our cities, although it is very similar to the U.S, we would all agree that Britain was evil. If you look beyond the curtain of Patriotism and National Pride, all governments, even when started with good intentions, always end up evil.

A vital question when talking about taxes is to ask which rights are more important. Is the right to live without just barely scraping by worth more than the right to extra money? Is the right to obtain medicine and health care, which the lack of is a leading cause of death in this country[1], more important than the right to extra money? If the answer to either of those questions is "yes", then we must conclude that it would be acceptable to, say, take a thousand dollars from someone very rich and give it to someone who would then use that money to purchase medicine they needed to live.

Since the majority of spending areas connect, it makes sense to charge someone money for something they don"t directly use. For instance, if I don"t use the road system but rely on the police, I still use the road system indirectly"police use public roads to get from place to place. Even if I and my children (if I have any) never go to a single day of public school, I still benefit from the public school system, because it teaches many people vital skills. Even if I never go to college, I benefit from the skills of people who benefited from government-funded scholarships.

I might also add that it is possible to not pay taxes: Don"t make any money. If you live as a hermit, supplying all your own power needs, growing/gathering your own food, bartering for any supplies that you need, et cetera, you don"t have to pay taxes, because you don"t have any money to give the government. What are you to give them, tomatoes?

If the State is taking away the right to property (to some degree) while granting some people life, when otherwise they wouldn"t have that life (or would be trapped in poverty and be generally miserable), then we can reasonably conclude that, according to the definitions of morally good and morally wrong, the State is doing actions that fall under both categories, leaving us to evaluate how it is on balance.

Now, Pro might argue that in the United States the taxes aren"t spent on things that are in the public"s best interest, and I"d agree, but this isn"t just about the current United States government; this is about States as a whole. For instance, what about a country such as Sweden, or Norway? These countries use taxes collecting from citizens with more money to fund programs that benefit the country as a whole (with people with less money benefiting more since they have the chance to get things like health care/insurance, education, et cetera, which they might not be able to get otherwise)[2].

P2: Education

I certainly agree that many school rules are odious. But there can be value in requiring that curriculum be state-approved. For instance, would we want teachers teaching creationism? What about a sanitized version of the antebellum South? Or flat Earth theory?

And, of course, parents are completely allowed to tell their children to ignore what they hear at school and give them a copy of Lies My Teacher Told Me or something similar.

P3: War

That's only the United States, though. Many countries don't do lots of fighting. And furthermore, Libya was engaged in a civil war at the time. In such a scenario it might be considered acceptable to intervene, even without congressional permission, to expedite an outcome that would save the most lives.

Citrakayah, I am truly sorry for the forfeit. I was experiencing computer difficulties and I couldn't go online. Do you think we could start this debate over, copying and pasting our arguments for rounds one and two? I will challenge you to a new debate if the answer is yes.